Wednesday, October 28, 2015

When Patrick heard that Jack Babcock, 107
years old, had become the last surviving Canadian soldier from the First World
War and that he lived mere hours away from Vancouver in the eastern Washington
city of Spokane, Patrick knew he had to meet him. An incredible opportunity for
anybody to actually speak to someone who was there – a young soldier caught up
in the excitement of defending his country, over 90 years ago.

Numerous articles had been written about
our country’s last soldier after the death of the only other surviving Canadian
veteran, Dwight Wilson – and although there was a lot of information to go on,
Patrick wanted to hear it from the man himself.

Jack, although he tried, never made it to
the front lines and in turn, managed to live another 9 decades. Destiny
diverted him from battle and allowed him time to find the girl he would start a
family with, have a career, serve in another country’s Army, and be a witness
to history of the 20th century as it unfolded.

Patrick, simply found Jack’s home number,
and called.

“Make sure you bring along your wife and
baby.” Babcock’s second wife, Dot, sounded enthusiastic about the visit with
Patrick.

Developing a feature film on this scale
involves so much research, listening, learning, hearing stories first hand.
Jack and his wife loved the idea of a social scenario, nothing formal: not a
structured interview, simply conversation. They had recently been bombarded by
multiple interviews from newspapers across Canada, so it was well understood.

Patrick drove down to Spokane with his
family on a Sunday afternoon and they arrived at the neatly kept bungalow after
a lengthy journey (multiple pit stops), and they were warmly welcomed into Jack
and Dot’s home.

Jack was positioned in the middle of the
sofa, while Dot sat off to one side. Jack was definitely not slight – thick
white hair & solid as a rock with hands that enveloped Patrick’s hand in a
handshake.

Jack and Dot have cats, which were an
immediate distraction for Patrick’s son Kieran, and although watching Kieran
chase the cats around the living room was definitely entertaining, Jack came
back to Patrick’s various questions. Patrick wanted to be spontaneous and enjoy
the moment, not worried about “getting the good stuff”. The meeting was
fantastic with much additional insight gained into remembering how human beings
can endure…

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

It is almost a year since Nicolas
Awde & Patrick Stark (Producers) signed Hollywood
screenwriter Jay Wolpert (Pirates of the Caribbean/The Count of Monte Cristo)
to write the film adaptation based on the highly acclaimed novel by award
winning American AuthorW.D.
Wetherell’s A Century of
November.

Screenwriter and
executive producer Jay Wolpert spent an action-packed two days in Vancouver to
meet with Nick and Patrick to go over script and story points. The schedule was
tight, but Nick, Patrick and Pacific Empire Corporation managed to pull it off
without a hitch.

Jay was in for a busy
two days: not long after being picked up from the airport he was whisked away
in Company’s 1969 Cadillac Fleetwood Limo and delivered to his hotel. Before
long, Jay, Nick and Patrick were immersed in a 5 hour script and story meeting.

From there, Jay was transported
to the Blink Media Works studios where he was interviewed (for a special
presentation piece Nick and Patrick assembed for the project) by local
EPK/Field Producer Marian Dodd (Entertainment Tonight), where Jay discussed the
process of adapting A Century of
November as well as regaling those ‘behind-the-scenes’ stories of his life
and career in Hollywood.

Research is key to
staying true to the authenticity of the film and the ‘when’ and ‘where’ the
story takes place – so at Jay’s request, Nick and Patrick discovered an apple
orchard to visit on Vancouver Island, very close to where our protagonist,
Charles Marden made his home, and from where his journey half way around the
world to find the exact spot his son fell, began.

It was a brutally
early start to the next day in an effort to catch the 6:30AM ferry from
Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver to Nanaimo’s Departure Bay: once they journeyed
across the strait began, they quickly lost track of the time. The voyage from
Vancouver to the apple orchard became a tremendous opportunity for all of them
to simply converse, break bread together and further solidify their plans to
continue to develop the feature film A Century of November.

After a brief but
informative stop by Nanaimo’s century-old courthouse, they drove 45 minutes
south to the Merridale Estate Cidery, one of the largest of its kind in North
America. Everybody involved was thrilled to be able to stroll through the
orchard consisting of numerous varieties of cider apple trees, all from Europe
and to take in the same air our characters would have breathed, experiencing
life as they may have experienced it.

After some cider
sampling, they drove back to Nanaimo in time to catch a 12:30 ferry back to the
mainland and straight to the airport to conclude Jay’s two Special Days…